The present invention relates to a display device for displaying characters or pictures by employing a display panel in which display elements such as liquid crystal are arrayed in a matrix form and, more particularly, to an improvement in a drive circuitry thereof.
A matrix type liquid crystal display device is known for displaying characters or television picture. This display device has a display panel which has liquid crystal display elements arranged in a matrix form, address and data lines, and drive circuits which sequentially scan the address lines and sequentially distribute picture data to the data lines. In such a display device, when a large number of data lines are required, it is difficult to construct the drive circuit for distributing picture data by a single integrated circuit due to the restriction in the number of outputs and in the layout. Therefore, in a conventional display device, the picture-signal distributing drive circuit is divided to be disposed at both sides of the display panel so that odd- and even-numbered data lines or left- and right-hand half data lines are driven by separate drive circuits.
The data lines of the display panel should be sequentially driven in its array direction. If the data line drive circuits disposed at both sides of the display panel have the same circuit arrangement and thus the sequence of generating the drive signals (picture data) at their output terminals are identical, then wires between the output terminals of one of the drive circuits and the data lines cross each other, which causes difficulty in manufacturing the display device. The provision of two types of drive circuits which sequentially generate drive signals in reverse sequence will simplify the wiring, but this causes an increase in manufacturing cost.